This is my life...

... repeatedly droning "Potty spot ... poop ... "at an oblivious puppy dog as I watch her chew on a rock.

We got a 3? month old Corgi-and-who-knows mutt at the shelter on Monday. We knew she was smart and/or somewhat trained -- she'd come when you clapped. (She is less likely to do so now. Guess she knew when she had to impress us....) She turns out to be paper-trained -- except she sometimes shreds and eats the paper -- and partially housetrained, and pretty good on the leash for a pup. She is not easily dissuaded from chewing on people and their clothing. She is more interested in people than toys, which is part of what attracted me to her. Downside, she wants lots of attention, and I am not a very playful person, word play aside. Word play being wasted on the pup.

We got the dog because daughter Alissa had wanted a dog for years, and she's 9-1/2, and it seemed like time to stop stalling. We did not get the dog because I wanted a dog, though I often enjoy her. She was sick for a day, and I felt maternal and protective for that day -- too bad I can't feel that way when she's healthy and chewing again.... I'm feeling some of the trapped, lost-freedom feeling I had when my older daughter was an infant, with fewer payoffs. However, there is the option, this time, of leaving the baby in a crate, or in a duffel bag in the car.

Bad grammar makes cases more fun

I was just reading an opinion from the Indiana Court of Appeals, and here was this bit:

"
While questioning Murray on the driver’s side of his vehicle, Officer Moore noticed that Murray’s eyes were watery and bloodshot, his speech was slow and slurred, and there was a strong odor of alcohol on his breath. After failing several field sobriety tests, Officer Moore arrested Murray."

I'm having fun visualizing this scene, if read literally. "After failing several field sobriety tests, Officer Moore arrested Murray." So Officer Moore failed several field sobriety tests, eh? Who administered these tests? Was it Murray, drunk as a skunk though he was? This is a comedy routine someone MUST perform! I'll suggest it to our local kids' theater....

Circular Accomplishment

Seems to me, the increasing nervousness among Republican Congressfolk, and their willingness to undercut Bush's policy by passing legislation carping at him (while he's out of the country yet), is most likely traceable to media reports of decreasing public support of the war. Which dwindling support, even if the reports of same are not slanted in themselves, is most likely the result of slanted reporting of what's happening in Iraq -- failure to mention Iraqi attitudes and Iraqi or American accomplishments that might give U.S. readers some hope that things are working out. So by selective and sometimes misleading reporting about Iraq, the press has managed to reduce even passive home-front support for our military/political operations there, and then has milked that decrease in popular support for all it's worth (or more) so as to undercut Congressional support.

Which I find disturbing.

Which does not mean I'm always critical of critical press re Iraq. I'm somewhat conflicted about the Post's scoop re secret CIA detention centers. I wish I knew more about whether the interrogation tactics they're using there are actually at all helpful in obtaining critical information on Islam jihadist plans, locations and tactics. Then I'd at least know whether the questions -- is the existence of these places disgraceful, and was the Post justified in reporting about them -- are easy or hard.

Does Zarqawi have Jordanian underlings?

The news of the slaughter in Jordan made me wonder if Jordanian Zarqawi has any Jordanian staff/underlings. And if so, whether they are as ready to kill innocent wedding parties, etc. in Jordan as Z. is. And if not, whether we might get some good news sometime, like Z. being found in the street in various bloody pieces.

Bush, Alito, and Saddam Hussein's miscalculation

I've been following the nomination of Judge Alito with great interest, and reading many articles and posts about him and opinions by him. There have been some commentators who, with some reason, have described him as less conservative than partisans on both ends of the political spectrum have painted him. Which raises the question of whether (as some liberals darkly mutter) the conservatives know something the rest of us don't, or whether they've been believing oversimplifications just as the liberals have.

Whatever the answer, the question leads me to wonder whether Bush has been playing a delicate game -- assuring conservatives that Alito is just what they've been dreaming of, while pointing out to Democrats and other non-conservatives the evidence against that view. If so, he might want to remember what turned out to be Saddam Hussein's downfall. Saddam wanted to get out from under sanctions, and apparently didn't want to count 100% on oil-money bribery -- so he apparently destroyed his WMD stockpiles or allowed their destruction, though keeping the knowledge necessary for quick rebuilding. But he wanted his neighbors to keep fearing him, so he simultaneously tried to maintain the illusion that he still had WMD's aplenty. Turned out he convinced the wrong people of the latter -- and down he went. Bush could end up undermining his conservative support, while failing to assuage liberals -- though I doubt he'll fail to the point of setting up a filibuster.

Old dog performs new trick

There's a new link at the side of this page -- the link to my new lawyer web page. I started out using a form offered by the host, but that didn't allow me to include sample briefs for folks to look at. The host's technical support was too basic to help me out. So I found some primers about html and read some instructions the host had. And I figured out what to do! And did it! And added some italics, even!

To anyone under age 25, this will look like bragging about learning to wipe one's nose. But I'm a dinosaur twice that age, and though I started working with computers before most folks my age, this is only my second attempt to do anything with even the simplest html. So I am pleased with myself!

While I'm at it, I guess I'll add the link to my wedding-photographer web page. Yes, I have many talents. Or two heads. Or something.

Words of Wisdom, apparently

If my teenage daughter thinks something I came up with is worth writing down, I guess I should offer it here...:

"There has to be a happy medium between blissful ignorance and paralyzing fear."

This could apply to many contexts, I suppose, including the one I talk about ad nauseum, our societal obsession with safety -- but it arose from a discussion of shoes. A blog entry I read about brown recluses prompted me to suggest that my kids shake their shoes out before putting them on. My daughter complained that she was now afraid to put on shoes. Hence my new-minted proverb-or-whatever.

The phrase "happy medium" always makes me think of the Happy Medium in A Wrinkle in Time -- a chronically cheerful clairvoyant.

Anywhere to go back to?

I don't have time or mental clarity, this late in the evening, to say much about the violence and destruction in France. However: it appears that a great number of people left various places in Africa and came to France, the Netherlands, and I dunno where else in Europe, presumably to escape poverty and/or find work and/or live under less oppressive governments. It doesn't seem to have worked out very well. They may be less poor than they (or their parents or grandparents) were, but they don't appear to be looking at their economic status as a glass half full. A high percentage are unemployed. And they're going to end up making their governments more oppressive, at this rate.

Fox News (online) reported that some of the rioters set fire to a middle-aged woman on crutches. If that's true, it'd sure be nice -- and quite unexpected -- if some of the rioters reacted the way Gandhi did when members of his noncooperation movement in Indiana attacked and killed (burned, if I'm remembering correctly) some Indian policemen. He called off the noncooperation tactic and went on a hunger strike until his followers went along. Of course, that'd require drawing a sharp ethical line between property destruction and torturing disabled women to death in the street.

As for solutions, oy. If I were a French policymaker, I'd be inclined to cut back drastically on immigration from Africa, if much of it is still happening, until my country had figured out how to cope with the previous immigrants and their descendants -- unless some humanitarian emergency were involved, in which case I'd be scurrying to come up with some improved intake/assimilation procedures. What about all those folks who are already in France and unhappy about their lives there? Is there any African country whose languages include French and which is welcoming new citizens with some knowledge of Western ways??? I'm not talking "send them back", a la Abraham Lincoln at some stage of his thinking, but if there were such a place, and if any of the disaffected were interested in relocating, some program could be developed to assist in that process. Those who didn't choose that option might become clearer in their minds about their own investment in France. Which still leaves what I gather are very serious French cultural obstacles to effective assimilation. Which I doubt will change soon.

Halloween dog owner etiquette (revised)

I don’t have a dog. In fact, I have never had a dog, although I’ve been friendly with other people’s dogs. So maybe my assumptions are off base. But it seems fairly obvious to me that if you have a large and fairly territorial dog, and if lots of little kids are going to be trick-or-treating at your house, and if you’re going to be opening your front door to give the kids candy, then you should do something with your dog other than leave it loose near the front door. Where the kids can wonder whether the big barking dog is going to get them.

And if a kid and/or parent expressed nervousness at this arrangement, I would consider it inappropriate to more or less tell them (even if politely and with a smile) to take a flying (and candy-less) leap.

(Fortunately, another member of the household restrained the dog. At which point, some standing and staring and other body language on my part induced the distributor of candy to hand some over.)

I need Miss Manners. What is dog owner etiquette for Halloween?

An interesting theory implicit in Alito's Casey dissent

I've been reading Judge Alito's 3rd Circuit dissent in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. It's not as scary as some are assuming (or wanting others to assume). (NPR is giving out a short and greatly oversimplified version of what he wrote.) For one thing, the spousal notification statute in question let a woman avoid telling her husband about her abortion plans if she believed the husband was not the father, or if she had reason to believe that telling the husband would lead to anyone inflicting bodily injury on her. (Ditto if the pregnancy is the result of spousal rape, or if the husband can't be found.) That leaves women who think the fetus is the husband's, as the result of consensual intercourse, and who aren't afraid that the husband will respond with violence. It does not seem inappropriate that the father should be in the loop under those circumstances. Also, the spousal notification provision was essentially unenforceable -- a woman's statement that she'd told her husband did not have to be made under oath, or otherwise under penalty of perjury. Moreover, the plaintiffs' statistical evidence seems to have been on the thin side.

What's most interesting about the dissent from a technical point of view, and the aspect that I find possibly questionable, is how Alito handles the question of which level of scrutiny applies. Alito says that the outcome depends on whether one applies strict scrutiny or rational basis analysis, and that under Webster and Hodgson v. Minnesota, strict scrutiny only applies if the statute imposes an "undue burden" on the right to an abortion. I haven't reread all of Webster or Hodgson, so for now I'm assuming he's characterizing them correctly. Alito then goes on and quotes a number of Justice O'Connor's opinions, often dissenting opinions, in order to define "undue burden". He concludes that, per these opinions, an "undue burden" most be either an absolute prohibition, a severe limitation, or a substantial limitation of access. In his view, given the evidence presented, the plaintiffs didn't make the case that the spousal notification provision met the "undue burden" test as thus defined.

But does one really interpret key language in a U.S. Supreme Court decision by looking to how its author -- rather than the Court as a whole -- interpreted that language in other opinions, including dissenting opinions? And is the answer to that question affected by the fact that O'Connor's "undue burden" opinion in Webster was a one-Justice concurring opinion?

Of course, there may not have been a lot in the way of post-Webster discussion of "undue burden" by the Court as a whole, when Alito was writing....

How can you found a movement you're already in?

Much of the reporting about Rosa Parks since her death has tracked the myth rather than the reality. For example, I've read in several places that her refusal to vacate her bus seat sparked the civil rights movement, or gave rise to, or led to the founding of, etc. etc. Ms. Parks was already active in the civil rights movement before her famous stand (sit) for bus equality. How can you found or give rise to a movement you're already part of? That her actions took the civil rights movement to another level, I readily concede.

Blog Quake Day - and a link for the lazy

The blogosphere did a terrific job of raising money for victims of last year's tsunami, and this year's hurricanes on the Gulf Coast. It's been a little slower to get up to speed helping victims of the Pakistan earthquake -- but it's getting there. Today is Blog Quake day, and many blogs are focusing on helping earthquake relief organizations raise money.

Me, I like the easy way to donate -- using Paypal. I don't need to go get my wallet and fill in a bunch of numbers. So to assist those as lazy as I, here's a relief organization that accepts Paypal donations, and offers three different funds to which you can donate -- some offering more immediate relief, others addressing long-term needs:

Association for the Development of Pakistan

If you'd like a wider choice, check the list at Desipundit.

Rosa Parks and a recent echo

When I first heard about Rosa Parks, many years ago, I didn't realize that she had been a civil rights activist before her famous refusal to vacate her seat on the bus, and that she was deliberately setting up a test case. I assumed, rather, that she had not been particularly political, and that the idea of standing up for herself was a spontaneous response to a last straw. I would guess that many in the civil rights movement implicitly encouraged such assumptions, although I'm not aware that Ms. Parks herself tried to obscure the truth. I don't think that her activist history in any way diminishes what she did -- but it makes for a different story than the mouse-that-roared version. Perhaps a less thrilling story, to some -- but I'm for knowing what really happened, when possible.

A September 19, 2005 Village Voice article stated that Cindy Sheehan "may be the Rosa Parks of the anti-war movement." That may be true in ways the Voice didn't mean. While I don't think she was a particularly influential activist before her son's death, she was a highly political animal, anti-Bush and generally left-wing. And Sheehan herself has tried to use the popular misconception to her advantage.

Standing, or sitting, up to be counted

The blog The Truth Laid Bear is asking bloggers who have a position on the Miers nomination to state it. OK, here it is: I oppose the Miers nomination. I will not lose night after night of sleep if she's confirmed -- at least, not unless/until she issues shallow or muddily written opinions in a constitutional area I care about. Which could happen, because she appears to be an inconsistent or even mediocre writer. Which is one straw too many, for me. I had earlier suggested that it might be good to have a practicing lawyer on the Court, who would realize the importance of clearly conceived and written opinions. She does not seem like the lawyer to advance that agenda. I am also concerned about what would happen re my own constitutional hobby-horse, concerning when state courts can issue grandparent visitation orders. (These orders override the judgment of fit custodial parents about who should associate with, influence, supervise and/or care for their children. Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57 (2000), put the brakes on to some extent.) Miers is conspicuously disclaiming having endorsed either Griswold v. Connecticut, one of the first right-to-privacy cases, or Meyer v. Nebraska, one of the first cases establishing the fundamental right of parents to decide how to raise their children. That does not bode well for her position on the existence on constitutional limits on state interference with parental decision-making.

There are, I concede, some problems with the notion of "substantive due process" (and if you want me to sum up those problems, ask me in the comments) -- but one can rely on stare decisis as a basis for treating that concept as a done deal, or one can explore bases (e.g. the Ninth Amendment) for the same principles.

a test of whether Congress has any, even a little, integrity - plus update

Many bloggers (including Instapundit, Red State and Powerline) have been discussing the Coburn Amendment, offered by Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn. This amendment to a budget bill would undo the much-criticized allocation of $220 million dollars to collect a town with 8,000 inhabitants to an island with fewer than 50 inhabitants. (There is already a ferry with frequent trips between the two.) It would re-allocate that money to reconstructing the Twin Spans Bridge between New Orleans and Slidell, LA. This amendment is meeting fierce resistance. As my husband, Hoosier Gadfly, would say: un-f__king-believable.)

Power Line is urging people to write their Congressfolk. I obliged with this message:

"Dear Representative Sodrel:

I write hoping and urging that you will support the Coburn Amendment shifting money for the notorious Alaskan "bridge to nowhere" over to desperately needed bridge construction in Louisiana. There is no conceivable reason to oppose this amendment except to protect the budget-busting pork-swapping culture that has plagued Congress for too long. I look forward to hearing that you have been our stand-up guy in Congress on this issue."

I thought of saying that no Republican with any lingering notion of Republican Party principles who nonetheless opposed the Coburn Amendment should be able to sleep at night -- but I thought it might antagonize him.... Also, it didn't seem fair, since I'm not a Republican. (Or any other name brand, at the moment.)

So I hope some of y'all will go forth and do likewise....

UPDATE: The Coburn Amendment failed in the Senate, mustering something like 15 votes in support. However, my husband, Hoosier Gadfly, just came back from Alaska and informs me that there may be another side to this question. According to what he was told up there, there are two different bridges, both of whose funding would have been cut by the Coburn Amendment. One of the bridges would enable the Anchorage region to expand outward; the other, the one with an island on one or both ends, would connect an airport (on the small island) to somewhere or other. I remain dubious that these bridges are worth this large a national investment, but it just goes to show that being REALLY sure you're right is asking for karmic difficulties....

Writing a political primer

A friend of mine who has been apolitical for years, and has particularly avoided the news since 9-11, has decided it's time to find out what's been happening. She asked me to get her started. Political animal that I am, I was drooling at the prospect. We had a lunch where I did most of the talking, and threw at her more facts than anyone could absorb. She asked me to write it all down. So I'm in the process of writing a partial political primer for the formerly news-averse, or (as my husband put it) for any Rip Van Winkles out there. So far, I've only done Part 1: Who is Saddam Hussein, and what have we done about him and why? If anyone would for any reason like a copy, just drop me an email. However, I haven't fact-checked my memory, so I can only hope my errors are reasonably minor.

Note: dead animals smell bad

For about two weeks now, we have been battling a smell. The evidence suggests that an animal, most likely a squirrel, entered our attic through a hole in an overhang and then burrowed through some insulation into the wall between our kitchen and dining room. And was then inconsiderate enough to die.

I had procrastinated about getting the hole fixed because I was afraid we'd trap some little animal in the attic or the walls, which would then die and stink up the place. Ain't irony fun.

At the moment, the smell is concentrated in our dining room, which is not the ideal location for it. We tried putting out coffee grounds, which absorb odors and have a strong and more pleasant odor of their own. Problem is, coffee doesn't just absorb odors -- it acquires them. After a while, the dining room smelled like the sort of flavored coffee that zombies might order.

Now we're trying baking soda and open doors and fans, and hoping all those little bacteria work overtime.

Legal Fictions, I Mean Jury Instructions

California recently completed a big job: rewriting all its sample jury instructions so that normal people can understand them, without getting any of the law wrong in the process. I've only heard one of the rewritten ones, which sounded fine.

This needs to be done in every state, folks! Here's an example of a typical jury instruction:

"Intent is a mental state, and the trier of fact must, absent an admission, resort to reasonable inferences based upon examination of surrounding circumstances to determine whether from a person’s conduct; and the natural consequences that might be expected from that conduct, there exists a showing or inference of intent to commit that conduct."

Oh, and that would be one of dozens of similar instructions thrown at the jury. Some states now give the jury a written copy; others probably pretend to expect the jurors not only to understand the instructions on first hearing, but to remember them days or weeks later.

Riiiiiiiight. A "legal fiction" is something the law pretends is a fact, often to get around some awkward aspect of decades-old case law. (If you want a more formal definition, it's "a presumption of fact assumed by a court for convenience, consistency or to achieve justice. ") When a legal fiction goes this far, it should be called a legal delusion.

Beware men who give a damn about kids!

I'm fuming about the recently publicized list of signs that a man may be a child molester. I gather Oprah had something to do with spreading this around -- if so, she should be deeply ashamed of herself.

This list essentially suggests that any man who shows any inclination to help, nurture, or teach children who are not his own should be regarded as a likely child molester. One would think the societal disadvantages of this approach are obvious enough. It's not bad enough that many children in this country don't get enough time with their parents, or their sole parent -- now we're sidelining any male adult who might partially fill that gap. Do these people think the number of child molesters compares with the number of decent human beings who just want to show kids how to care for farm animals, or hug a troubled student, or coach a softball team? Do they think the number of kids who may encounter a child molester is great enough to impoverish the lives of many, many times that number?

I know this list is just summing up and continuing what's been going on for years. Which is no excuse whatsoever.

This skewed look at the world of adults and children is related to our society's current paralyzing obsession with safety, which I have been lamenting for years. (On this blog, I did most of it in May of this year, if anyone wants to go to the archives and look.) Most people have no intuitive understanding of what it means to live in a country with hundreds of millions of people -- let alone a world with how-many-billions-are-we-up-to-now. If they read about some nasty class of events three times in five years, they start believing such events are a looming threat, justifying curtailing otherwise normal and healthy activities, altering time-honored habits and customs. Ironically, this pursuit of safety has its own risks, and many of its own casualties -- but they are harder to sum up in an AP article or sound bite. For example, people not cured by new drugs that don't get invented or marketed don't make the headlines. More fundamentally, the effects of working so hard for safety -- the opportunities not pursued, the experiments not tried, the initiatives smothered, the lives cramped -- undermine key elements of the American spirit.

Will the tide ever turn? Will common sense, a sense of proportion, or maybe a sense of humor, ever lead us to shake off our ever-increasing restraints and get on with living?

Why A Trial Lawyer Could be Good for USSC

It occurs to me that an experienced trial lawyer could bring a useful perspective to the U.S. Supreme Court. A trial lawyer knows firsthand the effect of confusing or complex USSC opinions on lawyers and on trial judges, and hence on the individuals and businesses those lawyers and judges serve. Ditto for the effect of decisions with no majority opinion and a host of concurring and dissenting opinions.